Analysis of questions asked by family doctors regarding patient care.

ABSTRACT:

Objectives

To characterise the information needs of family doctors by collecting the questions they asked about patient care during consultations and to classify these in ways that would be useful to developers of knowledge bases.

Design

Observational study in which investigators visited doctors for two half days and collected their questions. Taxonomies were developed to characterise the clinical topic and generic type of information sought for each question.

Setting

Eastern Iowa.

Participants

Random sample of 103 family doctors.

Main outcome measures

Number of questions posed, pursued, and answered; topic and generic type of information sought for each question; time spent pursuing answers; information resources used.

Results

Participants asked

SUBMITTER: Ely JW 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC28191 | biostudies-literature | 1999 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature